Chapter 4: Public Humiliation
The car didn’t go far. It circled three blocks and descended into another underground garage, this one beneath the Regal Hotel. A different gilded cage. The elevator here was mirrored, and Li Wei avoided his own reflection, focusing on the smooth grain of the walnut paneling instead.Mr. Zhao said nothing, scrolling through messages on his phone, the sharp click of his thumbnail against the screen the only sound.
The private dining room was on the top floor, a space of muted gold and deep burgundy. A round table, large enough for ten, was set for five. Three men in impeccably tailored suits stood by a window, holding espressos. They turned as one.
“Zhao! You’re late,” said the eldest, a man with silver hair and a watch that probably cost more than Li Wei’s university degree.
“Traffic in the sky is terrible these days,” Mr. Zhao said, not smiling. He shed his overcoat and Li Wei, after a heartbeat of hesitation, stepped forward to take it. The gesture felt instinctual, pulled from his hotel training. One of the executives, a younger man with sharp eyes, noticed. His gaze flicked over Li Wei’s plain black clothes, then away, a smirk playing on his lips.
They took their seats. Mr. Zhao was at the head, facing the window and the sprawling city view. Li Wei hovered, uncertain. There was no chair for him.
“The report on the Shenzhen acquisition,” the silver-haired man began, unrolling a napkin onto his lap.
Mr. Zhao ignored him. He looked up at Li Wei, his expression flat. “Kneel there,” he said, nodding to the space beside his ornate chair. “You’ll be out of the way.”
The air in the room tightened. The other men paused, their attention like a physical weight. Li Wei’s face burned. He looked at the plush carpet, a deep Persian pattern of vines and flowers. He thought of the straight razor, of the control he’d held. This was the other side of that coin.
Slowly, he lowered himself to his knees. The carpet was soft, but the floor beneath was hard. He settled, back straight, hands on his thighs, the position formal and painfully subservient.
“As I was saying,” the silver-haired man continued, his voice a fraction tighter. “Due diligence is complete. The regulatory hurdles, however…”
A server appeared, silent as a ghost, placing bowls of steaming congee, plates of delicate dumplings, fried bread sticks, and an assortment of tiny, perfect condiments before each man. The conversation moved on, a flow of numbers, percentages, legal jargon, and names Li Wei didn’t recognize. He tried to listen, to learn as instructed, but his awareness was narrowed to the ache in his knees and the heat of Mr. Zhao’s leg beside his shoulder.Mr. Zhao ate methodically, listening more than he spoke. He picked up a silver chopstick, speared a plump har gao dumpling from his plate. Then, instead of eating it, his hand descended. He held the morsel near Li Wei’s mouth.
“Eat,” he said, his voice conversational, not breaking his eye contact with the man speaking across the table about equity shares.
Li Wei’s lips parted. The dumpling was placed on his tongue. It was exquisite, the shrimp inside sweet and crisp. The silver was cold.Mr. Zhao’s fingers lingered, brushing his lower lip as he withdrew the chopstick. The touch was deliberate, slow.
Li Wei chewed, the food like ash in his mouth. He swallowed thickly.
The executives did not stop talking. But their eyes, previously avoiding the spectacle, now darted to it in quick, furtive cuts. The younger one’s smirk had solidified into a mask of cold amusement. They didn’t comment. They adjusted. This was part of the landscape of power with Zhao Xiansheng. A bizarre fixture. An acceptable eccentricity from a man whose signature could move markets.
The meal continued. A bite of congee, lifted by a porcelain spoon, tipped into Li Wei’s mouth. A fragment of fried dough, held for a second too long between his lips before Mr. Zhao released it. Each time, the touch. A thumb swiping a stray grain of rice from his chin. A knuckle tracing the line of his jaw. It was a pantomime of care, performed with clinical ownership.
“The boy is quiet,” the third executive, a heavyset man who had said little, finally remarked. His tone was neutral, testing.
“He’s learning,” Mr. Zhao said, feeding Li Wei a sliver of pickled vegetable. The vinegar taste was sharp, cutting through the numbness. “Observation before speech. It’s a dying skill.”
“And what is he observing here?” the silver-haired man asked, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
“The cost of things,” Mr. Zhao said. He set his chopsticks down with a quiet click. “The real price. Not the number on the contract, but the weight of the ask. The shape of the compliance.” He looked down at Li Wei, his gaze impersonal. “He’s learning what people will digest to get a seat at the table. Or,” he paused, “what they will do to stay kneeling beside it.”
The breakfast concluded with more coffee, with handshakes that were all grip and no warmth. The silver-haired man’s eyes finally met Li Wei’s directly as he left, and there was nothing in them. Not pity, not disgust. Just an assessment, filed away.
When the room was empty but for the two of them and the wreckage of the meal, Mr. Zhao stood. He didn’t offer Li Wei a hand up. Li Wei pushed himself to his feet, his legs prickling with painful needles of returning blood. He swayed, catching the back of the chair.
“The coat,” Mr. Zhao said.
Li Wei fetched it, helped him into it. His movements were automatic now, his mind a blank, roaring static.
In the elevator going down, Mr. Zhao finally spoke. “You handled that well. No tears. No fumbling.” He adjusted his cufflinks, the ones Li Wei had fastened. “They saw your embarrassment, of course. But they also saw you endure it. That has value. Humiliation is a currency, Li Wei. You just earned your first small deposit.”
The car was waiting. Inside, Mr. Zhao handed him a phone, sleek and new. “Your number is programmed in. Mine is the only contact. You will answer when I call. Tomorrow, you will not go to your university lectures. You will meet me at the gallery at ten. There is an art auction. A different kind of theatre.”
Li Wei took the phone. It felt heavier than the watch, heavier than the razor.
“The taste,” Mr. Zhao said, as the car pulled into the morning traffic. “The sourness from the champagne. What does it taste like now?”
Li Wei looked out the window at the blur of pedestrians, their lives ordinary and distant. He searched his own mouth, his own memory. The shame was a hot coal in his gut, but the taste…
“It’s still there,” Li Wei said, his voice quiet but clear. “But it’s… mixed with the vinegar. And the shrimp.”
Mr. Zhao nodded, a slow, approving incline of his head. “Good. Complexity. That’s progress.” He leaned back, closing his eyes. “Now be quiet. I need to think.”
Li Wei held the new phone in his hand, its screen black and reflective. In it, he saw the opaque window, the shadow of the car’s interior, and the vague outline of his own face—a face that was beginning to look less like the boy who had first put on a hotel uniform, and more like someone who understood the price of a meal.